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Faculty briefs: August ’12

Deborah Barrett has new articles featured on the following websites:

  • Psychology Today – “Feeling Like You’ve Been Hit by a Mack Truck: Mornings With Fibromyalgia”
  • ProHealth – “Walking the Line with Chronic Illness
  • National Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain Association – “When is it Just Fibromyalgia?” (an excerpt from interview with Deborah Barrett)

Paintracker tool goes live: An online tracking tool, developed by Deborah Barrett to work in conjunction with her book, Paintracking: Your Personal Guide to Living Well with Chronic Pain, is now available. The tool offers a simple, highly personal way to track how people are doing so they can see patterns over time, as well as explanatory factors that reveal what helps (and hurts). Recorded data is viewed in a table or interactive graph. This free online tool can be found at paintracking.com.

Natasha Bowen and Kara Van de Grift, MSW ’12, will be working closely with the principal and teachers at a low-performing school in Halifax County this fall to help them optimize the classroom context for learning. With a talented and experienced new principal, the school is ready to strengthen students’ beliefs in their ability and future success, their relationships with teachers, and their opportunities to help shape instructional strategies in the classroom. This training will be a regular component of the school’s professional development schedule.

Jodi Flick presented Aug. 1 on suicide, at the N.C. Foundation of Alcohol and Drug Studies Summer School in Wilmington.  She will also conduct CIT (Crisis Intervention Training) for local law enforcement officers from three counties (“Suicide Assessment and Intervention”) on Aug 9.  Flick is presenting at the AHEC Children’s State of the Art conference in Greenville on Aug. 16 (“Complicating Factors in Depression and Suicide with Children and Adolescents”) and on Aug. 17 on Suicide Risk Assessment.

Mark Fraser participated in an invitation-only retreat on “The Future of Social Work.” Sponsored by the University of Southern California, the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, and the Society for Social Work and Research, it was held August 8-10 on Bainbridge Island, Wash. Fraser responded to a presentation entitled, “Social Work and Practical Reason.” The key idea is to formulate a provisional statement on the science-related missions of social work and to consider defining social work as a science-based profession.

Amelia Roberts-Lewis conducted a training on July 25 for the UNC Housing Department on “Cross Cultural Communication: Using Ethnographic Interviewing as a Practical Tool.”  There were 46 people in attendance and the feedback from Rick Bradley, who heads Multicultural Training, was that this training was considered one of the most useful and helpful of the year.

Sheryl Zimmerman, Kenan Distinguished Professor and associate dean for doctoral education, recently received funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to convene a national conference entitled “Public Reporting on Housing with Support Services for Aged and Disabled Consumers.”  This conference is intended to explore and promote strategies to provide information to the three million people who choose among and use these services on a regular basis. It will be held this spring in Washington, D.C.

Upcoming AHEC Presentations by Faculty

CHARLOTTE AHEC
September 12 – LCSW Prep Course – Tanya Richmond

EASTERN AHEC
September 5 – Effective ISP Development:  From Assessment to Planning – Susie Equez
September 28 – Ethics in Working with Couples and Children – Anne Jones

GREENSBORO AHEC
September 13 – Group Therapy for Practicing Clinicians – Marilyn Ghezzi
September 26 – Ethics and Crime – Kim Strom-Gottfried

MOUNTAIN AHEC
September 6 – Intervening with People in Crisis – Marty Weems
September 13 – The Neurobiology of Trauma – Candace Killian, Ph.D. student